320 pounds of heat sinks.... - Page 2

Well I brought every single one of my heat sinks to my local yard today. I was trying to hold out but I needed to clear out space, getting rid of them freed up three 20 gal tubs. Based off of the yard I went to today I came away with the understanding there are 3 types of heat sinks. But who knows, they seemed rather confused themselves. Before I brought them to the yard I separated and sorted as I thought was correct. I removed the copper in the ones that didn't take too much time plus I discovered some heat sinks from certain servers were completely copper including the fins, That was an awesome discovery, each one weighed 2.8 pounds and I had 34 of them. I also learned you will find sinks that are bottom heavy and usually shinier on the base than the fins, those were copper 9 out of 10 times. The yard separated and paid in 4 grades.
1.All copper #2 copper $2.80/lb
2. all aluminum. $0.50/lb
3. copper base with aluminum fins $0.80/lb
4. Aluminum with misc. Copper .$0.75/lb



I misplaced my ticket so i don't know the exact grades they classified them,
Not even sure if they did it right but I'm satisfied cause if I would have sold them to my E scrap buyer they
Would have sold for $0.50/lb and today's take averaged $0.87/ lb.
I'm happy believing I made all the right choices with this transaction. I've only been doing this for 4 months
Now and am still learning. If there's one thing I would do different, I would figure out a way to separate more of the copper
From the aluminum.

I honestly think that everytime ive brought in alum I got paid differently. First yard I used would lump it all together regardless if it was sheet, cast, ext, etc. Then they would pay separate for cast. I started using a new yard, and the kid running the scale got confused when he saw all the alum options on the ticket screen, so it got graded as old sheet. Whatever.

I made sure to sort mine before I got to the yard. I also grinded the parts that looked like aluminum but were obviously Copper after being grinded. I wouldn't accept being paid for just aluminum if I knew it was copper. I'm sure the next time I go, even if it's the same guy, he'll be confused all over again.

I've been to three different yards locally, and they all do the same thing. When I give them a copper and aluminum heat sink, they pay me a dirty aluminum price. It's usually like $0.18-$0.25 or something horrific like that. So, now I just keep one in my truck, and anytime I go to a different yard, I ask what they will pay for it. Hopefully I find one soon that will give me a fair price. For now, I am just stockpiling them.